From: Ed Trager (ed.trager@gmail.com)
Date: Wed Dec 19 2007 - 11:01:09 CST
Hi, everyone,
For the Gregorian calendar in CLDR, two --and as far as I am aware
only two-- era terms are defined:
BC - "Before Christ"
AD - Anno Domini (="year of the lord")
Is it really the case that these are the only two era terms available in CLDR?
While these two era terms quite naturally arose from the fact that the
Gregorian calendar was promulgated by the Christian church, many
--myself included-- will now argue that these two terms should be
supplanted by the completely secular terms, "CE - Common Era" and "BCE
- Before Common Era".
While there are many grounds on which one can argue in favor of "CE"
and "BCE" over the traditional "AD" and "BC", perhaps the simplest and
least divisive is the simple fact that the two terms "BC" and "AD" are
not accurate, since most religious historians now believe that Jesus
of Nazareth was born sometime between 7 and 4 BCE.
Given the now world-wide use of the Gregorian Calendar as a secular
standard for measuring dates in every realm of endeavor beyond the
Church, it seems uncharacteristically anachronistic that the CLDR
defines only these two era terms:
=> At the very least, these two terms need to be supplanted by the
modern, secular terms, "CE - Common Era" and "BCE - Before Common Era"
This should be done immediately.
=> In the very best case, the anachronistic terms "BC" and "AD"
could be removed from CLDR altogether.
However, I --and I am sure many of you also-- realize that it may be
too much to ask for the outright removal of the anachronistic terms
"BC" and "AD". So rather than argue about removal of "BC" and "AD",
can we at least all agree that "CE" and "BCE" need to be added to CLDR
as soon as possible?
Note that in some locales, use of "Common Era" and "Before Common Era"
is already well established. For example, the Chinese already use the
term "公元" which means "common era" and "公元前" which means "before
common era". So, for the "zh" Chinese locales, we may conclude that
the "values" are already correct, but the "keys" are wrong. However,
in many other locales, translations of --or customary equivalents
for-- "BC" and "AD" naturally enough continue to reference the birth
of Jesus of Nazareth.
The addition of "CE" and "BCE" to CLDR will greatly facilitate the
efforts of localization specialists who wish to produce localized
software and electronic services for the widest possible audiences
without having to worry about offending anyone whose religious beliefs
and preferences may differ from those which have been traditionally
dominant in the Western world.
Best - Ed
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